Eat to level up! Let's Play Adventure Bar Story!

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nosimpleway
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Eat to level up! Let's Play Adventure Bar Story!

Postby nosimpleway » Thu May 07, 2015 10:42 am

Romo's been bugging me to do this for a while. So without further ado...

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Adventure Bar Story! Bar managing RPG! Now available on the Google Play Store for like three bucks, cheap enough that even I can afford it after a few weeks of saving.

This is a blind Let's Play. I've never played this before, and only got to day 3 to familiarize myself with basic gameplay before starting this thread. Speculation and discussion are welcome but please keep spoilers to a minimum.

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Our story opens with... grocery shopping.

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This is her, Siela, the protagonist of our adventuring barring story. Fred is taken aback by the short shopping list needed to stock the larder of a local restaurant.

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Are you saying... no. No, this isn't rated by the ESRB or anything but come on. Surely this is in an innocent context.

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The intro also shows you where to get any water you need: from the local well.

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And now the plot, such as it is, begins. This smarmy douche is Gustav, who wants to buy our unnamed restaurant/house. He owns Cassel Garden, th--

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I did say Cassel Garden! Let me finish! Cassel Garden is the finest (and only other) restaurant in the city of Casselburg, capital of the Cassel kingdom. Gustav himself is sleazy enough to con his way into getting what he wants, and is connected enough that he doesn't fear reprisal or arrest for doing it. Siela is dead-set against selling (or being evictmurdered out of) her childhood home, so...

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Right. That's... well, I'm not sure how that'll actually solve the problem, but that's the central conflict of the game.

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Yeah! Let's do this! I'm super stoked!

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nosimpleway
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Re: Eat to level up! Let's Play Adventure Bar Story!

Postby nosimpleway » Thu May 07, 2015 10:47 am

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Fred still runs the counter at the grocery store, but he'll accompany us outside the city when we go foraging for ingredients for free.

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Exploring the attic of the house and brushing off Siela's fear of spiders for a moment, we find a couple of item boxes. One is this Holy Water, the other is a Mitten we can wear for some protection in a character's accessory slot.

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We also find dad's secret savings and one of his old cookbooks, learning how to make meat pies and pork curry.

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Barging into a stranger's house in traditional JRPG fashion nets us another few recipes...

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...including a bean risotto, which is not a recipe I'd put into an introductory-level cookbook.

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Siela's currently got a fruit knife as her weapon and a pot lid as a shield. I swing by Fred's to spend some of dad's savings on new equipment, like a broadsword and some proper armor.

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Fred also sells us some kitchen equipment, since our run-down old hole-in-the-wall doesn't even come with a kitchen knife or a mixing bowl. Or an electric blender, in this world where we fight with swords and draw water from the well.

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nosimpleway
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Re: Eat to level up! Let's Play Adventure Bar Story!

Postby nosimpleway » Thu May 07, 2015 10:49 am

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Since this is an RPG, I assume we'll be visiting this magical land of rats later. I bet Siela is going to be about as happy about a rat kingdom as she is about her spider-filled attic, because she's a girl.

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You can visit Cassel Garden if you want. Gustav remains smug, and I learn an important lesson about taking screenshots in rapid succession.

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For being the most popular restaurant around, no one dining here seems to be all that pleased with it.

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nosimpleway
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Re: Eat to level up! Let's Play Adventure Bar Story!

Postby nosimpleway » Thu May 07, 2015 10:56 am

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One major aspect of the game is foraging for ingredients in the wilderness. It saves money at Fred's shop, which makes it kind of weird that Fred risks his life to help you do it.

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Brusso Field is the only destination currently available. You can visit one location, once, per day. So grab all you can! I mean, it's just lying there, on the ground... sometimes in convenient little bottles or bags. The cabbage-and-carrot icon is a random vegetable ingredient, the pear-and-cherry is some random fruit, the paper bags are grains.

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Cassel must have some pretty lax health codes if they let you serve milk that you found in the middle of a field lying on the ground for god-knows-how-long.

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Because this is an RPG, there are random battles. Don't let the grid fool you, as far as I can tell there's no tactical movement or anything.

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This being an RPG, animals drop loot. Because this is a restaurant-themed RPG, the loot is ingredients rather than cash or healing potions. (Well, okay, sometimes it's healing potions.) The vegetable creature dropped a head of fresh cabbage, a head of lettuce, and a seed. The bird was carrying an egg with it when it attacked, and its carcass can probably be passed off as a prairie chicken.

I'm not really sure what the EP on the right side is yet.

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Siela doesn't get any battle skills, but before long Fred gets both Butcher and Steal.

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What's in the item box? A magic sword! A sturdy shield? A... recipe for apple pie?

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Siela and makes it to the far side of the dungeon-grassland, arms loaded with ingredients and Fred's unconscious body. I barely made it out as it is, and without that initial equipment upgrade at the store, I wouldn't have made it past the first or second screen. Whew!

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nosimpleway
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Re: Eat to level up! Let's Play Adventure Bar Story!

Postby nosimpleway » Thu May 07, 2015 11:08 am

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And here's the other major part of the game, unless there's a third aspect I haven't gotten to yet. Having found several ingredients lying around in the dirt, and having scavenged more off the corpses of local wildlife, it's time to get this restaurant running. Apparently Siela does all her adventuring in time to come back and prep for lunch.

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We don't have much in the way of ingredients, equipment, or cooking know-how quite yet. Without buying new equipment or getting ingredients, the only thing you can make to start is salted cucumber, by combining... well, cucumber, salt, and your bare hands.

Each recipe has up to four ingredients, plus one tool needed to assemble it. Considering the Salted Cucumber doesn't even call for a Knife, I can only assume that it's a plate with one whole unpeeled cucumber and a small dish of salt for the diner to season to their liking.

We're not gonna make a successful restaurant like that!

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Combine rice, bean, and milk in a pot, like the recipe we stole from the stranger's house said, to make a Bean Risotto. Hey! Risotto isn't made with milk! This is a rice pudding!

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You don't have to follow a recipe, of course. You can improvise by combining ingredients and tools to see what comes up. It's usually "Failure", and immediately discarded as unsalable and inedible, but sometimes you can figure out the internal game logic and make something usable. So let's see. A bit of vinegar and an egg yolk, and a lot of oil mixed together in the blender...

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This is the first recipe available at Fred's store, so I just saved $150 doing it myself.

Uh, there doesn't seem to be anything preventing me from save-scumming that sort of thing. Save the game, buy all the recipes or experiment like mad, write down what works, turn the game off, reload from the last save to keep my money and ingredients, right? I'm going to, uh, refrain from doing that if I can help it.

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After prepping some food, talk to Kamerina to build the day's menu. It's not much, but again: we don't have much.

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Finally, Siela and Fred enjoy their staff meal for all the hard work they did. Chorfing down some scrambled eggs increases max HP! That's right, you don't get stronger by fighting in this game, you eat to level up! Thread title reached!

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End the day by opening the store.

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You get a brief rundown of what people bought. In this case, the Bean Risotto was a hit; we sold out! And two people got the whole cucumber with salt.

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After that, the day is over. Time makes fools of us all.

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That's that for the first session, I think. Next time, we'll... well, I think we'll do the exact same thing, until more plot progression opens up... uh, however that happens.

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nosimpleway
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Re: Eat to level up! Let's Play Adventure Bar Story!

Postby nosimpleway » Thu May 07, 2015 11:32 am

Sometimes you get a Hint Recipe, which I think is linked somehow to the EP you get from battling. A Hint Recipe is the name and at least one ingredient for a recipe, but you have to fill in the blanks yourself. So some of these are going to be incomplete, but here's a list of the recipes so far. Quotes are the ingame commentary. Italics are mine.

Mayonnaise:
Egg, Vinegar, Olive Oil, Blender

Flour:
Wheat, Blender
"Powdered wheat"

Bread:
Flour, Salt, Oven
"Best when freshly baked"
Yeast is apparently not an ingredient. Or this is pita bread.

Pie Dough:
Flour, butter, Bowl
"To make pies"

Butter:
Milk, Salt, Blender
"Lovely with toasted bread"

G. Chicken:
Chicken, _____
"Chicken meat"
I assumed this was "Grilled chicken", and neither Oven nor Frying Pan is the tool needed, so maybe a grill opens up later.

Salted Cabbage:
Cabbage, _____, _____
Could it be... Salt and Bare Hands?

Salted Cucumber:
Cucumber, Salt, Bare Hands

Pickles:
Cucumber, _____, Bare Hands
There's a "Fermenter" tool available at the shop, though I don't have it yet. I wonder if I can turn pickles into kimchee.

Riceball:
_____, _____, Bare hands

Vegie Sticks:
Cucumber, _____, Mayonnaise, Knife

Sliced Apple:
_____, _____
Oh god what could it be

Lettuce Salad:
Lettuce, Salt, Vinegar, Olive Oil, Bowl
"The salad"

Daikon Salad:
Daikon, Salt, _____, _____, _____
"Thinly cut daikon salad"

Caesar Salad:
_____, Cheese, Bread, _____, Bowl
"Creamy cheese salad"

Bean Risotto:
Rice, Bean, Milk, Pot
"Risotto made with beans"

Bean Soup:
Bean, Stock, Salt, Black Pepper, Pot
"It's rather filling"

Edamame:
Bean, _____, _____
"Good with beer"

Pork Curry:
Pork, Yellow Spice, Potato, Onion, Pot
"Curry with pork"

Vegie Curry:
_____, Yellow Spice, _____, _____, Pot
"Vegetarian curry"

Scrambled Egg:
Egg, Salt, Frying Pan

Omelet:
Egg, Ketchup, Ham, Frying Pan
Ketchup on an omelet... oh, Japan. It's homemade, so my usual ketchup aversion doesn't apply here, but still.

Cheese Omelet:
Egg, Ketchup, _____, Frying Pan
"Cheese and egg!"
The final ingredient will forever remain a mystery.

Cheesy Eggplant:
Eggplant, Cheese, Herb, Frying Pan
"With cheese and herb"

Fried Rice:
Rice, Salt, Black Pepper, Egg, Frying Pan
"Chinese classic"

Pepperoncino:
Pasta, Red Spice, Garlic, Frying Pan
"Garlic and oil"

Strawbery Juice:
Strawberry, _____
"Thick strawberry juice"

Apple Juice:
Apple, Blender
"Too much will cause heart burn"

Apple Pie:
Pie Dough, Apple, Egg, Oven
"America's favorite"

Cherry Pie:
Pie Dough, Cherry, _____, _____
"America's second favorite"

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Grath
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Re: Eat to level up! Let's Play Adventure Bar Story!

Postby Grath » Thu May 07, 2015 12:26 pm

I think I played this back when it wasn't about food, but was named Recettear.

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Re: Eat to level up! Let's Play Adventure Bar Story!

Postby Thad » Thu May 07, 2015 12:39 pm

Hm. I like the graphics, from what I can see of them in the screenshots, and it seems to have a bit of the vibe from Torneko's chapter in DQ4, which was my favorite.

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nosimpleway
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Re: Eat to level up! Let's Play Adventure Bar Story!

Postby nosimpleway » Thu May 07, 2015 4:13 pm

Grath wrote:I think I played this back when it wasn't about food, but was named Recettear.

It may not surprise you to learn that many budget mobile games are rather derivative.

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Romosome
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Re: Eat to level up! Let's Play Adventure Bar Story!

Postby Romosome » Thu May 07, 2015 8:09 pm

hooray, I've been waiting for R2 to play this forever
A few clarifications that I hope aren't considered spoilers (They're in the Help files, I'm mostly just saving you time):

Hint Recipes are unrelated to EP. You get Hints either from making another recipe, like making apple juice might give you the brainstorm that you could make some kind of grape juice, if you could only figure out what the ingredient to substitute is! Or you get them from talking to people. That kid whining about sliced apples in Cassel Garden gave you the hint recipe for Sliced Apples in all its enigmatic glory. Sometimes, talking to someone will give you a full recipe straight up.

EP lets you learn spells. So there's some advancement from battle.

Yes, you can save scum the FUCK out of this game, including using the premium real-cash currency Gems to solve a recipe and then reload to before you spent them. It's almost shocking considering how heavy on server-side verification most mobile games are, which is part of the charm for me...an elegant RPG, from a simpler time.

The game is more of a massive Atelier "ripoff" than Recettear; it's straight up Atelier with food instead of alchemy. This is also due to the fact that it was made by the creator of the Atelier series.

Keep exploring everywhere, there are hidden passages and a surprising amount of secret treasures. I'll shut up now. Thank you for player!

EDIT: Added spoiler tags just in case R2 truly wants to figure out the game mechanics himself. I'm just excited.

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Re: Eat to level up! Let's Play Adventure Bar Story!

Postby Healy » Thu May 07, 2015 8:27 pm

This is actually a pretty cute game. I'll keep an eye on this thread.
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Re: Eat to level up! Let's Play Adventure Bar Story!

Postby nosimpleway » Thu May 07, 2015 11:49 pm

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It occurs to me that at no point is our home restaurant ever named. So, thread consensus, what do we call this place? "BAR" is straightforward but lacking in style.

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Another day, another trip to Brusso Meadows.

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Oh, right!

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Dicking around in the status menu, I stumbled on this: each skill you unlock requires a number of a certain kind of EP. Here, getting Siela's first skill needs 75 of the gray block sort of EP, and she's got 65.

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So that didn't take long.

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Another small bonus: I found a secret path on the last screen of the Meadow, leading to this little trove. The item boxes are an Eagle Eye and a Ring of Might, which I assume are nicer accessories than plain ol' regular Boots. I probably should have equipped them.

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At Fred's store, the Imports option lets you spend gems instead of dolla bills. Gems are the "buy to win" currency, that you only get for spending real money. You can also burn gems to figure out recipes that are missing ingredients, but... look, I put off buying a $3 game for weeks because I'm broke, so this stuff is probably just not gonna happen.

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nosimpleway
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Re: Eat to level up! Let's Play Adventure Bar Story!

Postby nosimpleway » Thu May 07, 2015 11:52 pm

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All right, let's try some improvisation.

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Salt plus cabbage equals salted cabbage. AMAZING

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WOW

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So with that salad done, let's try filling in the blanks here...

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Nope. Whatever the game considers the final crucial element in a Caesar salad, it's not egg yolk.

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It's the oil in the dressing. I'm starting to see a pattern to these salad recipes...

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Hmm, yes...

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nosimpleway
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Re: Eat to level up! Let's Play Adventure Bar Story!

Postby nosimpleway » Thu May 07, 2015 11:57 pm

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I know Stock is needed as an ingredient, so I make a guess how to make it. Toss a whole chicken into the pot, cover with water, and wait. Since time isn't a factor for anything in this game, I immediately come up with some chicken stock.

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I have less luck guessing the formula for ketchup. Tomatoes, sugar, vinegar, and a long simmer... I wonder what I'm missing (in the context of a game that often glazes over seasonings, I mean).

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I'm pretty sure I can guess what's needed for a Creme Caramel, though.

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A sweet custard needs eggs and sugar! Can you believe I went to college for this?

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nosimpleway
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Re: Eat to level up! Let's Play Adventure Bar Story!

Postby nosimpleway » Thu May 07, 2015 11:59 pm

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As before, Siela and Fred get to chorf down on anything that isn't on dinner service and each level up for doing it.

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Those Caesar Salads are pricey, I should probably figure out the most cost-efficient way to make those.

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And time marches on.

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Blossom
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Re: Eat to level up! Let's Play Adventure Bar Story!

Postby Blossom » Fri May 08, 2015 12:00 am

Maybe Ketchup needs salt? Do you have a partial one for it?
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Re: Eat to level up! Let's Play Adventure Bar Story!

Postby Romosome » Fri May 08, 2015 12:20 am

nosimpleway wrote:glazes


I see what you did there.

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Re: Eat to level up! Let's Play Adventure Bar Story!

Postby nosimpleway » Fri May 08, 2015 12:24 am

Recipe book:

Mayonnaise
Flour
Bread
Pie Dough
Butter


G. Chicken:
Chicken, _____
Judging from the Meat Pie recipe I found in the attic, this isn't "Grilled" chicken, it's "Ground" chicken. Does the Blender stand in for a Meat-Grinder? Siela needs a KitchenAid mixer and some accessories.

Stock:
Chicken, Water, Pot
"Chicken flavor extracted"

Salted Cabbage: 16 EXP, $120
Cabbage, Salt, Bare Hands

Salted Cucumber: 13 EXP, $110

Pickles: 16 EXP, $130
Cucumber, Vinegar, Bare Hands

Riceball: 32 EXP, $80
_____, _____, Bare hands

Vegie Sticks: 63 EXP, $360
Cucumber, _____, Mayonnaise, Knife

Caprese: 93 EXP, $460
Tomato, _____, _____, _____, Knife
A Caprese is a salad of mozzerella, tomato, and basil leaves with Balsamic vinegar. So as soon as I figure out which item stands in for basil -- lookin' at you, "Herb" -- I can probably do this one.

Sliced Apple: 8 EXP, $60
Lettuce Salad: 48 EXP, $280

Daikon Salad: 42 EXP, $250
Daikon, Salt, Vinegar, Olive Oil, Bowl

Tomato Salad: 34 EXP, $200
Tomato, Salt, Vinegar, Olive Oil, Bowl

Caesar Salad: 86 EXP, $450
Lettuce, Cheese, Bread, Olive Oil, Bowl

Bean Risotto: 36 EXP, $140

Stuffed Cabbage: 92 EXP, $490
Cabbage, _____, _____, Pot
Stuffed with onions and pork, is my guess. Haven't seen a pig yet, though.

Onion Soup: 105 EXP, $540
Onion, _____, Salt, Black Pepper, Pot
Stock, I'd say.

Bean Soup: 94 EXP, $490

Edamame: 7 EXP, $60
Bean, _____, _____
"Good with beer"
Given the EXP and sell price, I'm gonna try Salt and Bare Hands. That's newbie-recipe yield.

Pork Curry: 96 EXP, $500

Vegie Curry: 83 EXP, $440
_____, Yellow Spice, _____, _____, Pot
"Vegetarian curry"

Scrambled Egg 1: 12 EXP, $55
Omelet: 116 EXP, $590

Cheese Omelet: 100 EXP, $510
Egg, Ketchup, Cheese, Frying Pan
Surprise!

Cheesy Eggplant: 81 EXP, $430
Fried Rice: 72 EXP, $400
Pepperoncino: 83 EXP, $410

Tomato Juice: 10 EXP, $80
Tomato, _____, _____
"Not blood"
I'm assuming it's still out of the blender, but tomato throws a curveball not present in strawberry or apple juice by demanding a second ingredient. Probably salt, although if I can find some horseradish I'll whip up a mean Bloody Mary.

Strawbery Juice: 18 EXP, $110
Apple Juice: 8 EXP, $60

Cherry Juice: 24 EXP, $140
Cherry, _____
Not much guesswork here, I just haven't done it yet. Cherries seem easier to forage than Strawberries or Apples, though. Maybe their ingame season is shorter?

Cheese & Tomato: 43 EXP, $250
_____, Olive Oil, _____, _____
Um... hmm. I wonder what the other two ingredients are.

Apple Pie: 35 EXP, $250

Cherry Pie: 57 EXP, $320
Pie Dough, Cherry, _____, _____

Meat Pie: 70 EXP, $400
Pie Dough, G. Beef, Egg, Oven

Creme Caramel: 18 EXP, $120
Egg, Milk, Sugar, Oven
"Kamerina's favorite"

Potato Tempura: 20 EXP, $140
Potato, _____, _____, Fryer

Doughnut Bread: 22 EXP, $150
Bread, _____, Olive Oil, _____
I'm guessing Sugar and Fryer.

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nosimpleway
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Re: Eat to level up! Let's Play Adventure Bar Story!

Postby nosimpleway » Fri May 08, 2015 12:48 pm

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Being able to convert SP into HP means a big increase to our dungeon-delving ability, although the spell is too weak to bother wasting a combat turn on. Still, between-fight recovery power has just increased greatly.

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This is... less useful. Enemy HP shows up in health bars when they're targeted now, giving a vague idea of how much longer the fight will last.

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Butter + Flour + Pot and Butter + Flour + Oven doesn't result in a roux, despite that being a massively useful tool in any French-style cooking. Furthermore, Flour + Butter + Stock doesn't result in a Veloute sauce, that's a Failure. I'm not even going to try for Hollandaise.

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That'll clean up the ol' recipe list a little.

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Onigiri are typically stuffed with pickled plums, right? Nori seaweed hasn't shown up as an ingredient yet, so...

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Oh. Hmm.

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Fred offers to sell recipes, but you can see what the names of each one is before you buy it. So I know that Strawberry Jelly exists in the game, and here's my best guess...

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Yeah. It is, in fact, jelloy.

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If I had known Jelly was so lucrative I wouldn't have made so much Strawbery Juice.

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nosimpleway
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Re: Eat to level up! Let's Play Adventure Bar Story!

Postby nosimpleway » Fri May 08, 2015 12:52 pm

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I'm going to start greeting people like this now.

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Long story short, Fred tells Siela about the forest nearby, which is full of different ingredients to forage but is super-dangerous, so don't go without him, okay?

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You... uh... o-kay...

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Hey, I found a steady source of pork!

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The Forest is, as Fred warned, full of nasty monsters. These dryads appear to be the worst of them, flinging rocks for about 30 damage.

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I just learned that if you defeat a monster and then run away from the rest, you get to keep the loot and EP from the one you killed.

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I got into a fight with this mob three times. With Fred KOed from dryad rocks, I fled twice, and then they cornered Siela and beat her to death.

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